


Two Of Us

by mrc_1205



Category: Hamilton - Miranda, Hamilton - Miranda (Broadway Cast) Actor RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Author Is Sleep Deprived, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I cried while writing this, John Laurens Loves Turtles, Lams - Freeform, M/M, Mentions of alcohol, Sad, Song: Two of Us (Louis Tomlinson), Suicidal Thoughts, The Author Regrets Everything, im sorry, inspired by a Louis Tomlinson song, ish, soldier! John Laurens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:14:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28519188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrc_1205/pseuds/mrc_1205
Summary: I miss seeing you sitting at the window and painting, I miss seeing you smile in the morning while I’m getting dressed. I miss seeing you rant about General Lee. I miss hearing you sing in the shower. I miss hearing you making dinner when I get home from work. I miss you. Please. Come back.orJohn Laurens dies at war and Alex isn't sure how to cope.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens
Comments: 9
Kudos: 21





	Two Of Us

**Author's Note:**

> TW: major character death, suicidal thoughts, mentions of alcohol
> 
> I'm sorry in advance. This made me cry like 4 times writing it.

My hands move on instinct to your contact, I know that your phone is probably deep in some military base but I imagine it in your warm, calloused hands. I imagine you frantically searching for it until- The ringing stops and is replaced by a voice: Your voice. It’s a simple voice message, “Hey, I’m John Laurens, leave a message.” Your tone is soft, and delicate; warm and inviting; it feels like home.

“Hey, John,” my voice is shaking and I imagine your response - you would ask if I’m alright and ask if I wanted you to come home. I used to always say no but I really wish I could say yes right now, “I’m not okay, my Dear, I really want you to come home. I miss you,” Tears are falling down my face but I continue, “I miss seeing you sitting at the window and painting, I miss seeing you smile in the morning while I’m getting dressed. I miss seeing you rant about General Lee. I miss hearing you sing in the shower. I miss hearing you making dinner when I get home from work.” I can picture you getting this message and I can see how your face would fall at my choked voice as I say, “I miss you. Please. Come back.”

He’s dead. He can’t. I tell myself. But in my mind, there’s you, and you’re just as bubbly as the day you left, and you’re smiling through the tears and promising me you’re going to come back. 

You’ve never broken a promise before.

An automated voice cuts off my crying and tells me I have reached the time limit. I put my phone down and replace it’s warmth in my hands with my head. I’m vaguely aware of someone coming in  and placing their arm around my shoulders but it’s not you. So I don’t bother looking up. 

* * *

Christmas, it’s just the two of us in our apartment. We’re sitting on the floor next to the couch, you under my arm. You’re opening the present from me. You yank the wrapping paper off the gift and accidentally elbow me. You don’t even look at the present before checking I’m alright. I tuck my head into your broad shoulder and smell your familiar scent as you pick up your gift, your whole face lights up at the small turtle plushie. Your smile envelops your face as you kiss me and thank me. There’s a beeping in the background I don’t recall then suddenly, my head isn’t tucked into your shoulder, it’s tucked into a white pillow. I realise the beeping is my alarm. I grumble and reach over, shutting it off. I roll over in our big bed and reach round to your side. It’s cold.

A wave of grief crashes over me as I wake up. I remember. I remember wishing you were home after a stressful day at work. I remember sifting through the mail looking for a letter from you.

I looked at the handwriting on the outside and it wasn’t yours. Pushing away the dark thought that crossed my mind I thought you must’ve asked someone else to sort out the envelope because you were busy. Not because you were dead.

I remember opening the letter and seeing it was typed, my head shot up to the wall as I thought that no soldier types their letters home. That  _ you _ don’t type your letters home. The only typed letters are official military ones. Once again, that same disquieting thought crossed my mind but I physically shook it loose from my neurons. You weren’t dead I told myself. 

I swallowed thickly and only saw one word amongst the text. The others faded into a black mass, like ravens piled atop one another in rows. The paper crumpled in my strangling grip, disrupting the birds’ rows. The logical half of my brain told me to read the whole letter but the panic only allowed me to read:

Dead.

The word struck me in the heart, like a bullet. A bullet that might have torn through your skin but held itself, hot and heavy, in my chest. The pain seemed to spread through my body, like poison running in my veins, until it reached my legs.

I collapsed onto the kitchen floor, hand still clutching the letter to my chest and my body shook with sobs.

* * *

I think of when we met, those voices in my head overcoming me. The days I would just lie in bed. I think of when I wanted to die. I think of how I felt then. I feel the same now.

What’s the point of being here, being in the god forsaken world if you aren’t here with me? If I can’t wake up to your smile every morning, or even knowing that smile is out there, why should I continue? If you can’t tell me I’m worth life, how do I know?

Why did they have to take you when they could have taken me?

I remember when I told you about how I thought about death, how I wished he had taken me at 12 with my mother, or at 17 in that hurricane. I just unloaded everything onto you, and you said that I shouldn’t give up, that I  _ can’t  _ give up. I have you to thank that I’m still here today, yet I couldn’t stop you from leaving me.

I look back at the phone in my hands. I’m looking through our old pictures. It feels like you’re smiling in all of them. Your smile seems to cover your whole face in our wedding photos and a small one slips onto mine. I wish I could go back to that day, we were both so happy. We were all so happy, but most importantly: you were happy. 

I look up, I imagine you up there sometimes, somewhere in the sky. I imagine you looking down on me now, crying over our wedding pictures. I can picture you crying too because I’m crying and I laugh. For the first time since the letter, I laugh. Because when I laugh you smile like you did in these pictures. 

That gives me hope. Not that you’ll come back, but that you’re out there. You’re in my heart, my mind, you’re in the universe - somewhere. You’re not gone.

You’ll be there, waiting. You’ll always be there as long as I keep you with me. I can think of you, you wouldn’t want me to just stop living. As long as I don’t forget, I should keep living - that’s what you would say. 

I will, I tell you, I will live. I’ll live for the both of us.

I promise you I won’t forget. I wish, my Dear Laurens, it might be in my power by action rather than words to convince you that I love you. But I can’t. I can’t hold you tight and I can’t kiss you senseless and I can’t see your face again. I can’t even tell you that till you bade us Adieu, I hardly knew the value you had taught my heart to set upon you. Since you’ve been gone it feels like my love for you has grown. My love for your cheeky smile, my love for your curly hair, my love for running my fingers through that hair, my love for your endless freckles, it has all grown - so that now it is all encompassing. It feels as though you are by my side and will be for the rest of time. 

My hand skirts over my collarbone and the word written there: 

**HOME.**

It’s the only tattoo I have but you had so many. I used to love seeing them as we got ready for bed each night, how they would stick out against your dark skin. My favourite, though, was the one on your collarbone - a little cartoon house. I remember when you proposed it and I laughed but I’m not laughing now, because it feels like a little piece of you is engraved in my chest. 

Home, the tattoo says, because I was your home, and I am your home and I will be your home - forever. You’re not getting out of this marriage as easily as you think. You’re always going to be my husband - dead or not.

I get up quickly, I can’t take this wallowing anymore - it’s not what you would have wanted. I’m going to live my life. I get into the car and drive to Herc’s house. It’s not much and I probably could have walked - but I always drive. You walk.

He opens the door and we go inside. We drink surplus amounts of alcohol, round after round toasted to you. We talk about all our favourite memories, the time we got way too drunk at a bar and started freestyle rapping for the hell of it. We cry as we talk but smiles rarely fall from our faces.

* * *

It’s as if I can feel your hand on my shoulder, telling me it’s going to be fine, reassuring me you’ll still be here when I get back. Except you won’t. I know that. Just like I know that you’re not here now. But, I grab my computer bag, that doesn’t matter - you wouldn’t want me to stop. You would want me to do this. I want me to do this.

I just wish you were here.

I stare at myself in the hallway mirror, I remember getting it. We went thrift shopping and you were immediately obsessed with it. I touch the chipped paint on the glass of the small turtle you painted on it as soon as we got back. I step back, my suit is black and my tie is green, like a turtle. You really liked turtles, I laugh, and it doesn’t feel wrong anymore. The green tie feels like you’re here with me, holding my hand and that yearning dies away, just a little, as I walk through the door and head to work.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed (can you enjoy such an angsty fic???) that. Kudos and comments appreciated :)


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